Welcome to "The Door" - Blog Notes of Mike Morgan, Councilmember, City of Trinidad, CA

My Blog, will help me learn more about issues important to you, and how you feel about issues important to me. My personal site receives no funding from the City. I am committed to an open and transparent government process - all files here will be public, stored only at Blogger.com and this Gmail account. I won't publish/share private addresses, but they may be subject to legal disclosure.

Monday, January 26, 2009

McK News Gets Town Riled Up - If You're Not Part of the Solution ...

One of my favorite sayings - "Trinidad is a small Town with big personalities and even bigger opinions." Another one is from the last Council meeting - "Keep It Simple Stupid" (KISS).

I hear you.

Really Simple Solution:Councilmembers who were involved in these email discussions, between a majority of the Council, should accept that what they did was poor judgement at best, apologize to our Townspeople for breaking their trust, and commit to not do it again. Dun.

McK News Gets Town Riled Up

Story: Uproar Over Trinidad Councilman's Blog. People are definitely reading the local paper and their Blog. Mostly, I think it was a fair article. As far as violations of trust go - that is what this is all about. But it's not about my violating the 4 individual Councilmember's trust to keep this away from the public. The violation of our Townspeople's trust by the Council having discussions like these, and apparently making decisions out of public scrutiny, is what's important here.

It should be clarified that these emails were not "private" nor should they have been. When a majority of the Council is communicating about subject matter jurisdiction items, like these, those discussions should be public and decisions to act should be made in and with the public's interest in mind - not just the interest of the individual Councilmembers who are participating. These emails were circulated within a majority of the Council at the time, and with Staff, and they were sent to me by Councilmembers.

4 comments:

Mike, keep up the good work and posts. Julie, being a former member of the Board of Supervisors, should know that they are playing on the margin in regard to the Brown Act. Also, where is the city manager and city attorney on this issue?

Unfortunately, I cannot discuss the City Attorney's position because it is cloaked in confidentiality at the moment. I'm working on getting it our in the open though.

You'll have to ask the City Manager his position (677-0223) ... I don't think he'll blog about it. He has been supportive about working with me and the Council on this. There is not much he can do except monitor their communications, when they include him. He has said that the activity has stopped.

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About Mike

Born August 5, 1964 in Montana, adopted and raised by middle-class parents in the SF Bay Area, California, I experienced the ups and downs inherent in relationships, and learned an important value from my Dad along the way - "any job worth doing, is worth doing well".

My life has been more about luck than any plan I've set - though my mother has taught me that spiritually, we make our own luck. In San Francisco, my second favorite city after Trinidad, I had a successful career as an Art Director, Graphic Design. I also built my first house. I'm grateful for the many amazing and inspiring people I met along the way to Trinidad.

Retired for 13 years, Trinidad keeps me busy with new roles - purchasing and remodeling the town's B&B, back to school for Emergency Medical and Fire Service for our Trinidad VFD, working on the Greater Trinidad Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, and running meetings for the past few years as Planning Commission Chairman.

As a City Councilmember, I've started my newest job with a renewed commitment to one of my favorite values, and with gratitude for my inspiration - this one is worth doing really well Dad.